February 2023 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

FEBRUARY 2023 TDM

INTRODUCTION

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Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not.

All TDMs are game canon. You can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Each TDM will provide a scenario for how characters arrive in-game that particular month.

Playing TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain canon items from homes especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.

Current players are allowed to have in-game characters react to TDMs via the Network or make a log with the prompts. Current players are always encouraged to tag new people on the TDM!

TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two]

SPRING BREAKS LOOSE

Content Warnings: extreme weather

the time is near

The earth is awakening.

You are aware of this fact before consciousness truly returns. One minute you were a falling star but as your body reforms you can sense the freshness of spring just around the corner. In your minds eye you can see circling birds in the sky, feel the first warm breeze of the season, and hear icicles melting into crystal puddles.

But something isn't right.

The moment you are truly awake you find yourself in what could generously be described as a shack built in the snowy wasteland of Wintermute. You and another Star Child are at least being kept warm by an electric heater, but there really isn't much in the way of amenities otherwise. More disturbingly, the entire shack has a deeply oppressive aura to it, encouraging the pair of you to leave as soon as you can.

But where can you possibly go?

Stepping outside reveals the answer, as parked not far from the shed is a dogsled, complete with warm winter gear to protect you from the cold.

The dogs themselves are the real marvels; not flesh and blood, the sled dogs are in fact automatons. The winter sun reflects off of their silver and copper bodies and the steady tick of their inner workings breaks the chilly silence. Each dog has a key sticking out of its back, turning slowly.

The oppressive sense you felt in the shack continues to grow. Your thoughts begin to turn negative: sad, paranoid, fearful. It is quite unbearable... until your eye falls on a delicate splash of purple against the snow.

Close to the dogsled, a single crocus pokes out of the ground.

The very sight of it calms you down. Picking it will make you feel happy, and you will find yourself blurting out the first pleasant memory that comes to mind.

The robodogs bark, delighted, encouraging you to climb aboard the sled and look for more of those flowers!

Every crocus you collect will make you feel positive emotions and the urge to share good personal moments with your companion. The more you find, the happier you will be... and you might get quite close to a total stranger as a result as well!

in from the snow

While you are out and about, you'll want to keep an eye on your team of dogs - they can and will lose power after a point. Your job as a good dog driver is to keep them wound up! Yes, you'll have to stop and physically wind the dogs back up when they lose steam.

You are likely to discover weapons jutting up from the snow. These are all unenchanted items, basic swords, guns, shields, etc., but the second you pull them from the snow the weather will take a turn for the worse. You may even be subject to a sudden avalanche! Hopefully you got the dogs wound up enough that they can get you out of there without any damage!

Eventually the dogs will choose to take you to Akhlut Station in Wintermute where you can catch the train somewhere a little warmer.

BUT SO DOES FEAR

Content Warnings: Fungus, spores, live burial, mental confusion and hallucinations.

putting roots in my dreamland

Willow is definitely warmer than Wintermute. The tail end of winter means that while much of the farmland is still blanketed in snow, the more wooded areas have large clear patches beneath the conifers. The ground here is damp and rich smelling. Poking out of the soil are tiny white mushrooms. These fungi glisten wetly, strangely compelling in their little rings of earth. You just want to take a closer look... maybe have a seat under the conifers and listen to the snow melt...

The mushrooms enchant anyone who gets close to them into simply staying put. They cloud the mind, leaving you in a dimly pleasant haze, while your body sinks slowly into the earth. The longer you stay, the more you sink - maybe a passerby can come and pull you out! If you don't wind up suffocated by dirt you will find that your head clears on its own once night falls. You will probably still need a hand pulling yourself out of the ground, but at least now you know what's going on.

The woods at night are not still - there are mice and owls and the usual nocturnal critters. There is also something else, something that moves slowly beneath the trees checking the mushroom traps. About eight feet tall, this lanky creature resembles a human skeleton held together by muscles and tendons of moss and fungus. Its head is a huge mushroom cap, underneath from which glitter a pair of bright blue eyes. If it finds any unfortunates stuck in the traps without anyone to help them, it will push their heads beneath the soil and hold them there until they die.

The sight of this creature inspires feelings of disorientation and hopelessness. These feelings are lessened when you are in close physical proximity with another Star Child, so it is to your advantage to stick together. The mushroom creature's objective remains the same: to feed the living earth with your body.

The creature is not particularly tough - its flesh is soft and gives way easily. You can defeat it easily with weapons or even your fists provided you can get close enough without succumbing to the disorientation and hopeless feelings. Oh, and you may not want to hit it on the head...

The mushroom cap, when struck, showers spores everywhere. These spores burn if they land on your skin, and if they get in your eyes they cause vivid hallucinations of ghostly figures reaching for you, trying to immobilize you. These hallucinations are so real that it is likely you will act as if they are real, standing still as if you are restrained.

If you defeat the mushroom creature, it will dissolve into the ground and leave in its place a wooden chest. Inside each of you will find some canon clothes and/or an item from your homeworlds.

coast is clear

Not far from the forest treeline, a bonfire burns merrily in the center of a circle of light green tents. The tents are kept warm by portable heaters, with some containing food and drink, and others offering small packs of seeds as gifts. These seeds are for common earth flowers and vegetables. One of the tents provides first aid supplies, in case you got roughed up fighting a giant mushroom or something.

The tents are staffed by squirrels and chipmunks. Just plain old ordinary squirrels and chipmunks. They don't speak - only chitter and occasionally screech - but they will help as best as their tiny paws allow.

This is a good time to recover, and also to talk to any other Star Children you may see.

Comments

[somethingrevolutionary]

"My brother called war a failure of statecraft," Mel replied, "I too prefer peace to war. However, I don't believe peace is merely a matter of statecraft. It takes more than that. That's what I do regularly, Hawke, 'fight' problems without the weapons of war, whether that is in war or in the civil enforcement of the laws. A land that must spill its people's bloods to keep the peace isn't keeping peace, only comfort for those in power at the expense of whoever is deemed expendable."

In Piltover, Mel never would have tipped her hand. It could get back to anyone on the Council who would be agog at the insult to the Enforcers and their use of them to control what was long known as the Undercity but shortlived as it may be is Zaun. Not being there, she has more liberty. Mel despises that she had to fight a mushroom monster because it means there was no peaceable manner open. This isn't Piltover. It isn't a city. The creature may not even have been sentient. It may have been specifically designed by Thirteen to do what it did, but Mel does not have to approve of it.

"Magic?" Mel asks despite Hawke's light tone. He used it to heal her. He has a staff that seems to aid him, a large and notable staff that seems difficult to hide, along with everything else about him.

"I have only arrived here myself. I claim no expertise or knowledge about the magic of being a Legend," Mel prefaces, "In fact, it may all come down to it entertaining our host, but I wonder about your wings. I am also a Legend, so if you would like to train together in being a Legend, perhaps in time it is a mystery we may solve together."

[da_champion]

She talked a lot. Hawke listens to her but clearly she's a politician. Probably a good one and one of the most genuine ones he's ever met. She believes in what she just said to him, wholeheartedly. Perhaps not as optimistic as Jayce, nor as resigned as Viktor. She was somewhere in between.

In some ways she reminded him of his mother, how she must have been in her younger years.

"War is statecraft," he argues. "It builds new states and destroys old ones. Don't get me wrong, I prefer peace but war is just a different from of statecraft, not a failure."

He holds up his hand and fire springs to life in his palm. "I'm a mage. I was born able to do magic. In my world, that gets me locked up for life in the Circle if I'm caught. So, I hid a lot until I had the power nobility, money, and fame brought me to keep myself somewhat safe."

The flame in his hand took the shape of a lean, sleek, cat. She reminded him of one. Unflinching and self-assured.

"I'm not all that bothered by the wings anymore." He shrugs the wings like they're his shoulders. "But I have been training people in magic. Viktor, for one. I'd be happy to teach you the tricks of the mage trade. Legend magic you'd probably be better off at the actual magic school. Baba Yaga's. Can't miss it. It has chicken legs."

[somethingrevolutionary]

Mel inclines her head in recognition of Hawke's point. "You are right," Mel grants. "Kino was being clever, as he was fond of. Philosophical, rather than philological. In a room full of people who only know one way to change the state, it's a twist to call them not stupid, for they aren't, but bad at their jobs, which they also are not."

Mel leans to one side. Her eyes muddy, dark black like the void of space. Her explanation lacks the same spirit as before. She glances away from Hawke for a moment, pulls herself back together, and straightens up. Her eyes remain the same, the only giveaway that something has changed.

"I am sorry you had to hide yourself like that and to use your privilege to secure your safety, never truly able to relax because the winds of power could shift against you."

The cat is beautiful and wonderful, fire something like sunlight. Cousins. Admiring it provides Mel more opportunity to settle into herself and into this continued conversation about magic, that itself akin to fire. Dangerous.

"When you teach Viktor magic, do you teach him the Arcane? Did he get the HexCore to work? At least, magic from Runeterra, not from your world?" Mel asks, "I don't imagine he was born with your kind of magic. It's impressive to teach someone magic you don't use yourself."

[da_champion]

Hawke just snorts. Shifting winds would be nice. That meant sometimes things were in mages favor. No, the winds were always against them. Even more now after what happened in Kirkwall. No political power in the world could protect mages from those dead set against them.

"I teach him to dream," he ways with a grin. Hawke twists his hand around and closes his fist around the cat making it vanish from sight. "The way magic works in my world is a mage dreams it and pulls that dream from the Fade, where dreams exist. Not that Viktor's very good at understanding magic like that. We shifted our lessons to a more scientific view and that seems to work better."

Not that they'd practiced much. Viktor is understandable skittish about magic. Hawke makes himself available whenever he wants a lesson. Or just to talk. Hawke does enjoy talking with Viktor.

"The magic here is deeply adaptable from what I've seen and experienced. It works for me like it works back home. I imagine it does the same for other mages from other places." Hawke hadn't talked much shop with the other mages here. Maybe he should. That could lead to some good conversations and some growth in power.

He did promise Jayce he'd learn a new school...

[somethingrevolutionary]

Mel imagines the cat made of fire existing in a dream or perhaps anything she has dreamed of existing in the real world. It's... not exactly something that makes sense to her. Hawke's dreams and dream world called the Fade likely differs from what she, Jayce, and Viktor experience when they sleep. That is not the source of magic in Runeterra.

"Jayce and Viktor both attended the Academy in Piltover," Mel says, "Piltover is known as the City of Progress, known for technological advancement. Their scientific prowess has brought HexTech to Piltover and to the world. It harnesses magical energy but is not the same as a mage using magic. I am not surprised to hear the scientific approach works better for him."

She does not add, yet, that the City of Progress considers magic a part of the past. Something banned. Against the Ethos. While Hawke would understand the difficulty, there's already a great deal sharing.

"That's remarkable. I know so little, but Folkmore impresses me," Mel says. "How... peaceable is it? So far I have avoided an avalanche and nearly been killed by a mushroom monster in less than one day. It's quite the welcome."

[da_champion]

Hawke could explain it better if she asked. He had explained the way magic worked in his world repeatedly since coming here. Mel didn't seem to want the details though so Hawke let it go. If she really wanted to know how it all worked she'd ask. She definitely seemed the type to ask.

"I know." He nods. "Jayce and Viktor have told me about their home. We've talked about magic extensively. How it works and doesn't work in their home. How magic is feared there too but not to the same extent as where I'm from."

He's been with the two of them for months now. They've had plenty of time to talk and both are incredibly interested in how Hawke's magic works. It's been amusing to try and get to make the scientists understand.

"Relatively," he says with a small shrug. "The Trials can have their dangers. Lots of people got kidnapped by dragons once. And there was some fighting then. Viktor got shot but I healed him. It comes and goes but in general things are quiet."

Peaceful was a relative term. Hawke found this place really peaceful compared to Thedas where there was a war going on. His opinion might be skewed.

[somethingrevolutionary]

Mel smiles a little as Hawke talks about Jayce and Viktor and how both of them have been involved. It doesn't matter that Jayce hasn't a lick of magic from Runeterra. He's more interested in magic than some magic users. Conversation like this one drives home how long Jayce has been here and, apparently, Viktor too. It's something that will go better with seeing. Hawke's casual references to time, to things that take time, that took place in the past. Mel is still wrapping her mind around just seeing them and them having so long since they saw her. It's not a detail to get hung up on. It is what it is, but it's harder emotionally than logically.

"So long as everyone from Runeterra comes from Piltover or Zaun, your understanding of magic from Runeterra may be limited," Mel says, "I mean no insult to Jayce or Viktor. There may be no better people in our time from our cities. Runeterra is large, and the majority of magic users, skilled magic users, come from elsewhere. It would be of as much interest to Jayce and Viktor too."

Mel quiets, introspective. "I may be a sentimental idealist, Hawke, but is it so much to hope that I could reach my potential without resorting to violence?"

[da_champion]

"That's alright. My understanding of magic in Thedas is very limited." Hawke really doesn't care to know the technical details. That's for other mages who care about those things. Hawke knows what works for him and he intends to stick with it even if other magic users try to explain the details. The details don't matter. The magic does. "Since I wasn't trained in a Circle my knowledge is limited. I've sort of figured everything out by instinct and trial and error."

No higher education for Hawke. No Academy. No lessons on manners and politics. Hawke and circumstance made him who he is. He's comfortable with that even if Viktor doesn't like it when he calls himself dumb.

The truth is not always kind.

"You're welcome to hope," he says waving a hand. "Nothing wrong with hoping for things. But even if you're a sentimental idealist I think you're realistic enough to know that there are times violence is the only response."

The world isn't about what's fair and righteous no matter how many people wish it was so. Hawke knows that. He would love a peaceful end to all the troubles in his life but that is not realistic. It's not something he can do. He has to fight.

"Here, though, things are different than the world I know. You could be on the right path and I could be stumbling in the dark. Only Thirteen knows for sure."

[somethingrevolutionary]

Hawke's description of his experience with magic is more relatable than he might think. Mel's amused by that, even as she says nothing of the matter. A restriction of her choosing; Mel refuses to say she has no choice. That saying is for fools who have already made a choice but want to justify the costs associated with it and wipe their hands of them. Mel could bond more closely with this closeted free grown mage. Instead, she pays the price she's paid all her life. Isolation for safety. Perhaps in Folkmore it's more delay.

"The world is a complicated place full of people not inclined toward going along with peaceful solutions," Mel says with poise, not the grumpy pout she feels toward her mother.

"In Folkmore, we may each try our own way and see how it goes. Should one of us make any obvious progress the other lacks, lets tell each other about it, okay?"

[da_champion]

"If you surpass me in magical talent I'll hang up my staff," Hawke says with an easy grin and just a touch of comfortable arrogance.

After all, he's been a mage his whole life. His magic showed young and early. There are other mages here who are more powerful but he doubts anyone just learning magic could outclass him so quickly. No matter how determined and smart they are.

"If you decide you want lessons, I live in Talaria. I teach magic there. Or I can point you towards the school if you'd like something more formal." Hawke offers her a hand to shake on the deal. "But you'll probably want to catch up with Jayce first. And Viktor. They're always at the forge so you'll never struggle to find them."

[somethingrevolutionary]

"Oh, I would never want you to do that," Mel says, laying a hand on Hawke's broad shoulder. "How about, if it happens, we make you a shirt that says 'Mel is a better mage than me' in gold lettering front and back, with some kind of artistic rendering of my face. You can wear it daily for a month or, should you feel particularly masochistic, until you match me in magical talent again. What do you say?"

She smiles.

"Thank you. I suspect I may take you up on that one day. I agree, it is good to have benchmarks. Jayce and Viktor are excellent stepping stones on the way toward reaching you."

Mel hasn't told him she's from Noxus. In Noxus, however, they believe in equality, the sort where anyone can rise to the top, no matter their birth status or start in life. Her answer is a more peaceful approach to the same attitude. Poor Hawke doesn't know that she's been a mage since she was a little girl, even if she hasn't studied most of it. Her potential is immense.

[da_champion]

Hawke chuckles softly. It's a fairly reasonable bet. It's certainly not the most outrageous bet he's ever taken part of. Isabela was very creative in her bets. "What counts as surpassing me in skill? Just you being able to do every spell I can? Plus one more?"

He's not agreeing to a bet until he knows the details of the terms. Isabela taught him that. So did ending up naked a lot more than he should have in Low Town.

While he's undoubtably a fool, he can learn a lesson.

"I wasn't talking about magic," he says. "I was talking about catching up in the sense of hearing their news and what they've been up to. Getting back together with your friends."

Besides, Hawke didn't think Jayce knew any magic. Or not the sort of magic that Hawke could do or that he was teaching Viktor.

[somethingrevolutionary]

Mel mulls over Hawke's question, including the question that provides a suggestion of terms. "Being able to perform spells is part of being a skilled mage, the way that being able to use certain scientific skills is for a scientist or artistic techniques is for an artist. However, I assure you that on those basic grounds, there are multiple people who are 'better scientists' than Jayce and Viktor, yet I believe all of Piltover would agree they are the best scientists of their generation. There needs to be some practical manner of how one uses those skills to demonstrate who is the better," Mel suggests.

She sighs. "I know you have talked about solving a lot of problems with violence, and you have heard that I dislike using violence. So I would like to find a measure we can agree on is greater than the sum of the parts of being a mage. When I say as much, does anything come to mind for you?"

Mel squeezes the shoulder her hand is on. "Thank you. I will naturally catch up with both of them. I need to, truly. There is so much I have missed, and as I am sure you know, so much has been happening in Piltover recently."

[da_champion]

"There's a class of magic where I'm from," he says once she finishes her whole bit. She does like to talk a great deal. Hawke's glad he didn't glaze over like he did when the Viscount spoke. "It's called Spirit Healer. It's a school of magic I never truly mastered. And requires a mage to give up all aggressive spell casting. It's like a trance state."

Hawke really has no idea how to explain it in a way that will make sense without mentioning the Fade and everything else. He's going to try his best though. "A great spirit healer can even bring people back from the brink of death. Master that and I'll consider you better than me."

It's the only school of magic Hawke thinks suits Mel's desire for non-violence and the world can always use more healers. Maybe she'll be able to fix Viktor's problems.

[somethingrevolutionary]

Mel perks up at giving up all aggressive spell casting. Hawke makes the right call with respect to her personal philosophy and it earns him a warm smile.

"It's a deal, Hawke. I don't know that I can handle starting to learn about it tonight, but consider me interested in becoming your student to learn more about your magic system in general so that I can learn spirit healing," Mel says.

Her smile fades. "I don't expect that magic learned here, especially from another world, should come home with me, should Thirteen return me to Piltover. If it should, if that should happen, Piltover is in great need of a great spirit healer. I don't care that the Ethos bans magic and people would look upon me with horror as a mage. With what happened, what just happened," Mel thinks of Jayce and Viktor, if they can survive the initial blast, "it will be worth it for what that magic can accomplish. Thank you, Hawke, for more than the challenge, you have given me hope."

[da_champion]

"Oh, just come find me when you're ready. Viktor can tell you where I live." Hawke rises to his feet and yanks his staff from the ground with a single pull. "The first step is the meditative state necessary to reach a helpful spirit in the Fade. No idea how we'll manage that when there's no Fade but it still works for me so..."

He shrugs. He'll figure something out when it comes to teaching her. Once she reaches the aura state then it'll be flying blind for both of them. Hawke never managed any great healing and what he did know was only from being with Anders for so long.

"Go spend time with your friends." He slung his staff over one shoulder, bladed end pointed out and his arm resting over the jeweled end. "I'm going to see if anyone else needs some attention. Pleasure to meet you, serah."

Hawke bows slightly, as he would to any noble back home. Of course, he tosses in a wink when he rises up just because he can. Just to see how she'll take it. Then he's off to wander the camp and find other injured parties.